Comment

Comment by jabes on May 23, 2013 at 11:10am

Great when neighbours ask what you're doing in your shed and say great ,do you sell them, must get 50 quid eh?

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on May 23, 2013 at 7:18am

10 guitars a week is pretty exceptional...last week I managed to get a custom order out and 9 ready for a guitar show - I had hardly any stock and it was the biggest show of the year, so it had to be done. I've now slotted about 20 fretboards, and also done some one piece necks with the frets set direct (no fretboard)...it's certainly helped my productivity, but some jobs just have to be done totally by hand, there's no short-cut with setting and finishing frets.

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on May 23, 2013 at 7:10am

I do the fret ends by hand...it takes a fair bit of time. I clamp the neck down to my workbench, and take the fret ends down to the sides of the board with an 8" fine file, then put a 30° bevel on the fret ends, and turning the file just enough to start rounding off the edge of the fretboard and fret ends. I then use a concave fret file to "dome" the fret ends, and finish with 1000g wet and dry paper. A decent concave fretfile is the proper tool for the job..mine is pretty ancient now and I could do with a new one, when I checked the price it was around £50 for one! I finish off polishing the frets with 0000 grade wirewool and a steel fretboard protector. It's a pretty involved process, but I've got it down pretty well now.

Comment by jabes on May 23, 2013 at 6:42am

haha ,i knew that last bit was coming , fair play ,.10 guits a week is some going, I make maybe 3 necks at a time all the same scale but with the headstock blank so i can get 'creative'  but not too creative.lol.

I find the dressing the frets the most tedious ,getting that 'snag free ' feel  any tips on that ,just using hand tools mind...

Comment by Randy S. Bretz on May 22, 2013 at 10:42pm

I didn`t find Jay`s but this one is similar to his set up.

Comment by Randy S. Bretz on May 22, 2013 at 9:58pm

Jay of Tinyguitars has a cool set up for doing his slotting. A saw he came up with, it has a long shaft that he has small circular saw blades same thickness as the slot. He can set them up to any scale length he chooses. One swipe and the fretboard is slotted. I think there might be a picture of it somewhere on here.